


Eye to Eye

by TypingBosmer



Category: Baldur's Gate, baldur's gate 3
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Eye Trauma, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27574145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/pseuds/TypingBosmer
Summary: Lae'Zel is resting back at camp when the party meets Zorru in the Druid Grove. So the task of getting information out of him falls to the party's reluctant leader: Niamh, a soft, bookish Githyanki cleric that was adopted by Material Plane dwellers and is venturing on her very first (disastrous) adventure. The interrogation proves horribly fruitless, and, stricken by the realization just how much she is feared and loathed by the people of the Material Plane (outside of her immediate circle of friends and adoptive family back in Baldur's Gate), Niamh heads to see someone who understands her plight.
Relationships: Zevlor/Original Female Character
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	Eye to Eye

'Again,' Niamh says, her half-strangled voice rising, with great effort, from the innermost depths of her chest, 'I am sorry'.

Her pale-blue eyes are wide, and her slit pupils swim in splashing brine. Like she is gazing out of twin salty lakes — with something dark lurking at the bottom of one of them. Twitching. Undulating. Agitated.

'I am so so sorry that... my kin killed your friend, Zorru. I think — I think you may have startled them; they may have thought they needed to act in self-defense. They are not used to this realm; it confuses them — and confusion makes you do awful things. Not that...' she swallows forcefully. 'Not that it excuses what they did — but please, ease understand that they are not... not walking clots of evil. Not like...'

The shadow in her eye coils, almost threatening to burst out to the surface, and then retreats.

'I mean you no harm, Zorru. None of my companions do. We just want you to help us, like we helped your people. If you just... show me on the map where — '

The young Tiefling, whose broad face drips with sweat just like the cave walls drip with trickling water, has nowhere left to backtrack away from her. As he stumbles, not seeing, not looking anywhere except at Niamh's unfamiliar, alien features — _yellow as a toad,_ he'd told his friends, _and twice as ugly_ — he trips over an open trunk that one of his fellow refugees has dragged out for packing. With an awkward flopping of his arms, he loses balance, and falls right into it, his behind firmly lodged into the trunk's wooden frame.

Even in this ridiculous position, which draws a sympathetic tongue click from Gale, an exasperated grunt from Shadowheart, and a snort from Astarion, he continues pointing at Niamh with a shaking, accusatory finger.

'You didn't fight the goblins to help us! You just thirsted for blood!'

Niamh freezes. Her pupils shrink to tiny needle scratches, and she clenches her bony yellow fists, like a bird curling up its feet. Behind her back, Astarion draws himself up, a spark of curiosity in his bruised ruby eyes. Perhaps he expects her to finally lash out — but he is in for a disappointment.

She does not lay a finger on Zorru, just as she never did on anyone else who spat out insults at her (starting with Shadowheart). Instead, she just makes a steep turn on her heels, her fluffy hair — dyed a cheerful pink that Lae'Zel often wrinkles her nose at — whipping after her.

'I'll be right back,' she says, before vanishing deeper into the cave.

'I bet she has gone to cry,' Shadowheart drawls derisively. 'I am surprised how she has survived this long; her kind from the Astral Plane aren't anywhere near this... mushy'.

'She does persist, though,' Gale points out, after he pulls Zorru back to his feet with a flourish of his wrist and a spark of magic. 'Despite the mushiness'.

Astarion sighs.

'I am still waiting for the moment when we all find out it was all a cunning ruse and our little Cleric Number Two shows us how pretty her teeth are when they rip out someone's throat'.

'You'll have to wait a really long time, then,' Shadowheart says, quirking an eyebrow.

She is not wrong. When Niamh vanishes out of sight, ducking under the carved stone panel that separates the larger cave from the more secluded quarters of the Tieflings' leader, her mushiness increases tenfold.

Her eyes are not just watering now; they are streaming with tears. The sobs envelop her, unrestrained and overpowering — but she pushes through them, striding across the cluttered makeshift study on the panel's other side.

The Tiefling within, busily poring over scout reports, with his forehead creased in concentration, looks up at her approach... And arches his eyebrows in concern.

'Is anything the matter?' he asks, swerving around his desk to come closer to Niamh. 'Is it Kagha? What did she do to you?'

'No, it's just —'

Niamh takes a shuddering breath and wipes her face with the back of her hand.

'I realized that I never thanked you'.

He clears his throat, looking rather sheepish.

'Well, there is not really much to thank me for. I wish I had been more hospitable to you and your companions, but in order to share a home, one needs to have a home, and...'

'No, it's not that'.

Niamh's voice cracks again, while the Tiefling watches her, one hand uncertainly extended. As if he might have hugged her but does not quite recall how it is done.

'When Aridin spat at me, you told him to show me some respect. It's not... Not what I've gotten used to since leaving home'.

She dips her head and casts her lake-blue eyes down at her fingers, which pick relentlessly at the fraying padding of her armoured shirt.

'You'd think I am a devotee of Ilmater, from how much I cried just now. But I am actually sworn to Oghma, like my... My adoptive parents. They found me in the wilderness, lost and confused, too young to explain where I came from or how I got separated from...'

She lowers her voice in gentle reverence.

'From my creche'.

Her fingers lock into fists again, and she looks up.

'I've never been to the Astral Plane, to my kind's home... I was raised in Baldur's Gate, among Oghma's faithful, who encouraged me to read, to try any skills I was curious about, to... to express myself. And they were not really afraid of me — because they were used to having me around since I was a toddler, I suppose. But ever since I ventured a little bit further from home, well...'

She reaches for him, as tentatively as he for her, letting their fingertips meet for a moment. Before she withdraws, her serrated ear tips turning dark.

'You were the first person who did not try to flee, or to attack me, the moment I drew breath in their presence. It's just... It has been exhausting, stopping to persuade any stranger that I am not about to eat them. Especially since I am more like them than they realize'.

She shakes her head, her hair flying in a pink whirlwind around her again.

'No, that's not right. I know I am not better than other Githyanki for having stayed behind on the Material Plane. I — I want to know more about my people. To travel among the stars like they do. Maybe... Ride a dragon some day? And I refuse to believe that they are — that we are — as evil as people think, just from looking at us'.

The Tiefling exhales the tiniest of 'Oh's, and finally acts on his impulse — by squeezing Niamh's shoulder.

'I understand. And if any of my people made you feel unwelcome, I will talk to them. Sternly. They ought to know better than this'.

Niamh clasps her own hand, lightly, around his wrist, and her large, low—set mouth stretches into a smile.

'Thank you, Zevlor. Perhaps... Perhaps they'll be more accepting after I follow up on the Blade's plan. My companions think that I am dallying too much; wasting time on saving people when I am about to turn into a monster. But — but most consider me a monster already, so...'

Still not letting her go, Zevlor fixes his eyes on hers. They stand like this for a few moments longer, the world slowly fading back, and neither flinches under the other's gaze. Not when golden flames — shimmering, scorching fragments of Avernus — dance within his eyes; not when the slithering shadow coils and uncoils in hers.

'Neither of us is a monster,' he says softly. And when she finally steps away, her eyes are dry and bright, and her posture is firm and assured.


End file.
